I had a conversation today which got me to thinking about our future as a species. Here's some of my prognostications, what do you think?

When I was in high school (40 years ago), I caught a Paul Harvey segment on the future. Don't know why it stuck with me, but two things he said were that we would have televisions that are flat and would hang on the wall like pictures, and that anyone alive to see the turn of the 20/21 century, would most likely see the next as well.

I recently read a "futurist" discussion of our probabilities. In 100 years the human lifespan will be pushed up to around 250 years, and disease will mostly be a thing of the past, thanks to genetic therapy. Surely, the logistical challenges of this will cause population to be managed by ourselves, or by natural causes, such as viral pandemics.

I believe that global warming will greatly affect the environment, limiting our ability to provide traditional foodstuffs. The pressure to survive will polarize the human population into very distinct castes. The priviledged will be the intellectually and technologically elite. They will deal globally with a universal language of business. Religion, like politics, will be viewed as arcaic, and a province of the lower classes.

Everything will be managed; oceans and their protein, forests, water production and collection, virtually all natural resources. The rule-makers will no longer be governments, but rather the medical technical establishment. They will be the ones who extend life, or make it even possible in the first place, so they will decide who is priviledged or who is not.

Humans will be involved very little in any manufacturing processes. Artificial intellegence will be the work force, with lower castes only serving in maintenance and support positions. For the elite, trading of goods worldwide will provide a superior lifestyle.

Marriage will be rare, or tempory, as few humans will wish to have the same sexual partners for over 200 years. Children will be strictly limited, and a child will be engeneered for a specific career, or societal niche. Their destiny and caste will be set by the needs of the community, and will be almost unchangeable. All language will devolve into a strict confer of information. Poetry and poets will no longer exist, and fiction will be created within our imaginations with virtual reality.

The Earth will run out of resources before man can reach other terrestial worlds which might support life. Again, global warming will be the catalyst which forces us to forget reaching for the stars in order to simply feed the remaining population. Meat will be only a memory, as all protein will be more efficiently manufactured by algae or vegetable production.

Of course, all of the above is conjecture. But so were Paul Harvey's flat televisions. Luckily, I won't be involved.

...Arcaic Ole' Lon

-- (lgal@exp.net), January 30, 2004

Answers

Waddaya mean you won't be involved???

-- hysterical helen (mule@is.concerned.too), January 30, 2004.

Yikes! I don't know why, bu your post reminded me of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie called "The Birds". There was one actor who had a line to repeat at various times during this long scene in a restaurant when the birds were running amok and attacking.

He kept saying "It's the end of the world."

-- (sonofdust@TEOTW.again), January 30, 2004.

Hmmmmmmn.

I've been a science fiction fan since I was in 3rd grade ....

And, of all the hundreds of first-on-the-moon stories, all of the what-if stories, none wwere able to predict that (as early as 1969) TV would procast the first step live to the whole world.

Even the most advanced SF writers couldn't predict even 2-3-4 or 5 into the future.

From the early "doomsayer" books (Erlich, and his earlier predecessors -(1 sp)) were writing about doom in the mid-90's, sometimes earlier. 1995 came and went, and we had more food than ever thought possible.

Resources?

We have to be careful, but we are facing imminent doom - from anybody but the socialists, that is.

If (big if) the government stays out of theway, and let's people be free to think, then we will survive.

For as long a the Lord permits.

But He has gotten really pissed before.

-- Robert & Jean (Robert&Jean@south.whatsnow), January 30, 2004.

When we were kids on this farm, we used to catch skinks. They were all different sizes and colors. We didn't kill them. We just admired them and let them go. They were everywhere, thousands of them.

There are no skinks here now.

Ten years ago the skunk population was most evident by the huge number of them killed on the highway out front.

There are almost no dead skunks. Either they got smarter, or they aren't there. Ditto for terrapins. We rarely see terrapins dead or alive.

Coyotes used to live in the ravine to our north until the land owner bulldozed nearly all life off the ground. We can still hear them, but they are never close any more.

We still have birds, but it seems there are fewer species than I remember. Or maybe they moved too.

The river is silting up because of the dam downstream. The water is warmer and the fish population is stressed by all the recreational use in summer.

We've always used well water unfiltered with few problems. Now we're about to have it tested. It suddenly doesn't taste the same since the neighbor dozed so much ground upstream.

I dunno about the future.

-- helen (mules@get.depressed.sometimes), February 01, 2004.

Like the dude said in the Hitchcock film; "It's the end of the world."

-- (sonofdust@being.careful), February 01, 2004.

Ahh, come on Robert. Think of all the pronostications which have come true. Da Vinci envisioned a flying machine, an automobile and a telescope, 700 years ago! We had Buck Rodgers ray guns long before lasers, and I just saw an old Bond film (Connery was still a kid) where 007 had a locating device similar to GPS.

Sure, nobody predicted the time frame for man to walk on the moon, but visionaries have fantasized about it for centuries. Of course, we've had some tremendous suprizes with technology, like computers and their impacts such as the internet or gene mapping, but still, someone had to dream every invention before it came to pass.

I hope that many of the possibilities that I presented don't ever become reality, but like Helen, I think there were a lot more birds around when I was a kid. And, perhaps we still have some of the resources that we do is because a generation of people, like me, read the message of "doomsayers" such as Erlich or Rachel Carson, and took steps to change our future. Come on down to the bayou sometime and I'll take you to the old oyster beds that were killed by rice field runoff, or we'll catch a few fish in the Neches river below the refineries and test them for mercury. I would say we could collect a few bio-accumlators like mussels, but they're mostly long gone.

It's easy to ridicule the wild-eyed environmentalists and tree huggers today, because we are so definately outside the new American mainstream. The pendulum has swung back, and today's decision-makers are the guys with the check books. It's just the nature of our society these days to dismiss anything which might affect our ability to buy the necessary "stuff" so important to our lifestyle. Global warming is the latest laughingstock of the industrial community and the governmental toadies they dictate to.

But, like I said, it's not a battle I fight anymore. I sit on my dock and watch for the snowy egrets flying against the smoke from where they're clearing the last treeline and building huge brick homes on single-acre lots encroaching on the wetlands across the way. Oh, well, it's just mud and weeds. And I'm just an old tree-hugger. The future will happen according to it's own design, whether planned or happenstance, and our children's children will laugh at our aspirations and our fears.

(still, it's fun sometimes to think about)

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), February 01, 2004.

whoa, who left that soapbox out?

Sorry all, I'm just feeling a little,...wasted... these days. I make my living, such as it is, by testing for leaks and weaknesses in pressurized underground petroleum pipe systems. Since Bush was elected, I have lost over 30% of my contracts. Bush's administration has gutted the funds to environmental agencies so much that they simply cannot enforce the standards, and sadly, my clients are reacting by skipping the tests, in the knowledge that they will probably not get caught. I've spent my life working with people from Mom and Pop station owners to managers of some of the largest refineries in the world. And after a lifetime of thinking that education is the answer, I realize that most of them will still open that hidden valve and dump absolutely anything into the creek if it will enhance the bottom line.

So, sorry again for the rant. I'm going back down to the dock now and preach to the dog.

-- contrite old lon (lgal@exp.net), February 02, 2004.

We're doomed! Doomed, I tell ya!

Exploring thoughts and ideas is always good exercise for the mind. Lon, you can 'rant' anytime you want.

I can't imagine a lifespan of 250 years. We're too good at killing each other and ourselves with one thing or another. But if we DID live that long, I think you're right about marriage and sexual partners. (After 25 years we're still extremely active, but I just can't imagine 200!)

I sure hope you're wrong about poetry and poets...

(Since we're asking questions, where the heck is J?)

I'm very sorry to hear about your contracts. (((((Lon)))))

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), February 02, 2004.

Almost forgot...

"I realize that most of them will still open that hidden valve and dump absolutely anything into the creek if it will enhance the bottom line."

Or outsource jobs to another country where wages are lower.

No vision whatsoever for the future... sickening, isn't it?

Just do what you can, Lon, to make your little part of the world better... it DOES make a difference.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), February 02, 2004.

(((Lon)))

You need to shift gears and become a professional liar ... er ... writer. You're good! You're also old! Time to make money sitting down. >;)

(Where is J?)

-- helen (liars@need.employment.too), February 03, 2004.

((((Lon)))) I hope your business picks up again very soon - both for your sake and for the environment's! This has been a really rough year for you, so it's hardly a wonder that your take on the future is less than rosy. I'll try to compose a suitably rosy answer to your vision over the weekend, but it may be a rather large challenge. I'm going to Seattle for my aunt's memorial service.

Still, in keeping with my Pollyanna outlook, I'm sure I'll be able to come up with something :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), February 04, 2004.

Trish, that wasn't entirely my vision, but just some of the ideas from the "futurist" that I mentioned. He was from a thik-tank somewhere, and mostly talked about the possibility of extended life spans.

AS to the environment, I had always hoped that I would loose my business due to the advent of alternative power, and the demise of fossil fuels like petroleum. However, I just read where the new Bush budget increases the Pentagon by 7%, Homeland Security by 10%, and cuts the EPA by another 7%. So, I guess my priorities are not those of the American people. Every experienced pickpocket knows that if you give the crowd a monster to look at, you can lift every watch in the place.

Oh, and J had some concerns about his postings, once the password was dropped. I doubt if he will return, but I'll ask. And Helen, thanks for the vote of confidence, but unfortunately there is a growing number of publishers which do not share your opinion.

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), February 05, 2004.

J sent an 'e' saying he had some trouble getting in after we decloaked (anyone ever hear of that before?)so a reply went back to him saying just to try again.

Also, Kritter may be stopping in too.

-- (Holder of the@FrontDoor.key), February 06, 2004.

There was an awful time for me to get in when we dropped the password. Either send J the link for the top level, or tell him to search for the site on google and enter that way.

I'm feeling kinda naked without the password too, but I hope he'll come back. Not that I'm inviting him to get naked with me ... not that I don't want to get naked with him ... it's just that ... never mind ...

-- helen (ahem@er.uh), February 06, 2004.

I don't understand... How did he (or anyone) get here before? We never even had a password till more recently. So I'm confused as to why anyone can't just come in here directly like we all used to and like I'm doing now. Is it becuase some only know how to get here thru the passworded screen? IDK that doesn't make any sense to me but WTH. I'll just send him the link.

-- (Holder@ofthe.Keys), February 06, 2004.

I just sent J an 'e' with the direct link to the New Answers page so hopefully we'll hear from him soon!

I also told him how he's been missed...

-- (HolderofThe@FrontDoor.key), February 06, 2004.

Hmmmmmmn? Interesting problem...

(Looks at helen decloaked. Pretty. No, wait. That's not write. Rather... Er, looking with helen while decloaked...)

-- Robert & Jean (Robert&Jean@south.whatsnow), February 07, 2004.

OK, I had expected more discussion on the futurist concept of extending human life span and such. I have been doing a little research on diabetes and insulin lately, since I am now a member of the diabetic community, and today I came across an interesting interview.

Have you ever heard of a scientist named Cynthia Kenyon? Me neather, but a decade ago she showed that by manipulating certain genes in laboratory specimens of nematodes, she could double their life spans. Recently, her work has resulted by extending it sixfold. It seems, we have gone far beyond our basic unerstanding of what genes are, and what they do, to the much more incredible -how they do it. Scientists like Ms. Kenyon are learning how to manipulate, turn on or off, certain genes to regulate such details of life as insulin reception (food use) or cell maintenance.

In a nutshell, aging may be posponed, and with it, the diseases which mark it's progress. By reducing the genetic forces of cell destruction, while simultaniously increasing the foces of cell maintenance, immortality becomes a viable concept. And remember, this is work which is being published today; is does not fall into the realm of science fiction, but rather, science fact. Of course, nematodes are not complex organisms, but already researchers have made the jump to lab mice, which like yours truly, are mammals. Oh, and by the way, the mice not only lived longer, but did not get fat. They were old AND sexy! Well, at least as sexy as old mice get.

I don't know about you, but that absolutely blows my mind. And then there's the new therapies being developed using stem cell replacement, which are proving effective on everything from incontenence to paralysis.

It's from advancements in biotechnology like these, that I jumped to the societal effects I mentioned above. Who would these procedures be available to, and at what cost? How would population be controlled, if significant numbers of humans could have life spans in the range of 250-400 years or longer? Would we, as we aged, become more reckless with the certainty of life, or would we acquire wisdom with our years?

Just food for thought.

-- youngish ole Lon (lgal@exp.net), February 07, 2004.

Hmm a sexy old mouse eh.

Darn it Lon I don't think our retirement money will last that long. Does that mean I'd have to work until I was 250yrs of age before I could get out and see a bit of this great country? I'd be one grumpy old lady.

There has been some wonderful advances in stem cell reasearch though. They can already make a broken spinal cord in a mouse grow new cells and partially rewire itself. Imagine the hope that offers to anyone with spinal injury.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), February 08, 2004.